1.
From the Heavens
God places Earth over his ear
Like a fresh set of headphones
Listens to his planets pulse in 4/4 time;
Bomm Ka Ba Bomm Bomm Ka!
Bomm Ka Ba Bomm Bomm Ka!

2.
A Garbage can on fire. An inner city park.
Five men in a circle spit rhymes through their scarves.
Like monks chanting in
Ceremonial offerings to Quan-Yin,
As a distant train car passes, laying the backbeat,
And suddenly, the whole hood's
Just a little bit warmer.

3.
Schools got no dough for art programs,
City officials paint the walls of our tenements an
Oppressive deep gray,
So when the sun goes down,
We strike like assassins with
10 shakes to the can, spray our territory like a
wildcat in the forest.
10 minutes with a train car,
Like God, we bring light where once there was none
Because they tell us this city is not ours.
And Mom and Pops got no cash
For drums guitars and amps
So we just play back old records to drop verses in the night
Because they tell us this mind is not ours.

4.
A man and his mic are one.
A man and his mic and the DJ are one.
A man and his mic and the DJ and their crowd are one.
We bop our heads and groove as one.

5.
Used to be we had to eat at separate tables
Miles from the master's guests.
After a day in the fields, we would clap and stomp,
Chanting group prayers for our day to come.
Now I got my own pad on the same block
As the old master.
Late at night, I wake them up
By pulling into my driveway with Sub Woofers blazing.

6.
My father says that it all sounds the same.

7.
Hip-Hop, before you was born
The only thing ghetto children saw
When they cracked open life's fortune cookie
Was a chop shop, a cell block,
An army barracks, or cheap coffin.

8.
I am a subtle bass humming.
I am a kick drum snare and hi hat.
Programmed precisely.
I am a voice that flows over them like the Ganges,
Leaving a trail of rainbows behind me
Spilling out to the four corners of the galaxy.

9.
Middle aged old school cats still sporting
Pumas and breakers
Reciting KRS and DMC to their toddlers like a
Preacher reading from the King James Bible
At Sunday Mass.

10.
Like a knight's coat of armor,
Teenagers they be strapping on headphones
2 listen 2 'Pac
2 shield themselves from stray bullets,
2 block out the dirt apathy and madness
That holds residence on their streets.

11.
And Basquiat got rich republicans starin' at graffiti
On walls alongside Picasso and Dali.
'Cause we been tagging walls since the dawn of man,
With cuneiform and hieroglyphs in unauthorized caves.
We been piecing for ages,
Laying monoliths as shout outs
To the future from the past.
So we give props and shout outs back to
Cro-magnon man: the world's first B-Boy.

12.
Yet men in silk ties buy kids off the streets,
Plot product placement in their rhymes,
Make marionettes and minstrels to market,
Sift the soul from the rhythm,
Swap content for commerce,
Conversely pervert the reason for rhyme
Just like they did to Rock and Roll.
Before Elvis was Chuck Berry.
Before Eminem was Chuck D.
Somehow they always seems to revise history
So our kids can forget that Hip Hop used to be
About droppin' knowledge and house parties
Not buying Timberland's and SUV's.

13.
Still on corners across continents
In Rome, Istanbul, Tokyo, and Sao Paolo,
People of each ray from the prism
Wear Adidas, Hoodies, and baggy jeans.
They gather in basements to freestyle
And trade wax tracks,
Like miners they dig through record shops for
Forgotten artifacts,
Hand out flyers for scratch battles,
While poppin' and breakin' from
The beach to the tundra.
Hip-Hop got going a new type of crusade,
'Cause now even grannies in Sweden
Be sitting by fires,
Knitting sweaters for their grandkids,
While listening to Rakim and Biggie kick verse;
I like to think of it as Colonialism in reverse.


Thirteen Ways of Looking at Hip Hop by Vincent Toro
I met him today
(he is white)